Tianjin , China -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- In a gleaming classroom at Chong Hua High School in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin , students peer at onion slices under microscopes . Their biology teacher calls on Abdurrahman Mamat to explain what he sees .

`` Plasmolysis , '' he replies in perfect Mandarin .

Mamat is Uyghur , a mostly Muslim minority from China 's far-west Xinjiang region , and he is thousands of miles from home .

How he ended up in this mostly Han Chinese school is the largely untold story of a grand Communist Party experiment .

For more than a decade , the Chinese government has selected tens of thousands of top minority students from Xinjiang and placed them in high schools in eastern China -- the heartland of the Han , the country 's biggest ethnic group . They call it the `` Xinjiang Class . ''

`` Eastern China is more developed than Xinjiang and we get to enjoy better educational resources here , '' says Mamat , closely watched by government minders .

Mamat 's journey to Chong Hua High took a well-traveled route .

He was born in the ancient city of Kashgar in southern Xinjiang . Mamat showed academic promise and was shipped to Xinjiang 's capital Urumqi for middle school . After passing a strict entrance exam Mamat joined the Xinjiang class .

First time away from home

But he had to look up Tianjin on the Internet to find out where he was going . It was his first time out of Xinjiang .

`` At first I was n't used to the weather , the schedule and eating habits , but the teachers helped us adapt , '' he says .

Uyghurs ' religion , culture and Turkic language separate them from the millions of Han Chinese who have been encouraged by the state to migrate to Xinjiang , helping to exacerbate ethnic tensions in this restive region .

In 2009 , that tension boiled over with deadly ethnic riots between Han Chinese and Uyghurs that spilled out onto the streets of Urumqi .

And in recent months , China has been rocked by a series of attacks that the government in Beijing blames on Uyghur separatists . For a Party touting a `` harmonious society , '' this is deeply embarrassing .

The dean of Chong Hua 's minority students claims that their program has nothing to do with those `` thugs . ''

`` We are just building future talent , '' says Li Zhenchong .

Political purpose ?

But from its inception , the Xinjiang class had an overtly political purpose . Education Ministry documents repeatedly call on the program to educate minority students to `` defend the unity of China '' and `` safeguard national security . ''

`` We are not just educating them , we are cultivating their love for the country , '' Li admits .

The same could be said for any classroom in Communist China , but for the Xinjiang class , the political indoctrination appears to take on a special urgency .

`` The political goal is to try and create a patriotic ethnic minority cadre pool that will hopefully go back to Xinjiang and serve the Party state , '' says Professor James Leibold , a political scientist at Australia 's Latrobe University .

He says the Party could be failing .

`` On the ideological front it has n't succeeded . What we 've seen is actually students who participate and graduate at these programs tend to feel more Uyghur than they do Chinese when they come out . ''

Long-term studies , like those conducted by Timothy Grose , a specialist in Uyghur studies at the Indiana-based Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology seem to back that up .

Grose followed graduates from the Xinjiang class for years and found that they did n't internalize Communist Party ideals . In particular , they appeared to become more religious , not less , despite or perhaps because of the ban on prayer in the program .

At Chong Hua , minority students live together in dorm rooms , they eat in separate Halal cafeterias and often end up forming their own soccer teams .

The school insists there is no division amongst the students .

For Mamat , the Xinjiang Class is the only opportunity to get a strong education and he says he wants to go to college and then back to his home to develop the region .

`` This is a really good policy provided by the Party , I am honored to be a part of it , '' he says .

Q&A : Xinjiang and tensions in China 's far west

CNN 's Serena Dong contributed to this report .

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Mamat is Uyghur , just one of many from China 's ethnic minorities studying far from home

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Many have been placed by the government in eastern China , the heartland of the majority Han

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At the same time , many Han have been encouraged to moved to Xinjiang , where Uyghurs are from

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This has created tensions that have frequently erupted into violent clashes